Help! My PC won't boot up properly!

JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
Leading up to the problem, I was just on YouTube (on Chrome), and I noticed when I hovered the mouse cursor over a video thumbnail, it didn't start playing like it usually does. Then clicking on other parts of the page didn't work either. I was still able to minimize and maximize Chrome, so I wasn't totally frozen, but I couldn't do anything, so I pushed the restart button on my PC.

Normally this simply restarts it, but this time, after a couple of seconds, my PC actually turned off. I heard the usual "click" of it shutting down, and everything stopped and got quiet.

After about 1-2 seconds, it turned back on, turned off again, then turned back on. This was all by itself. I hadn't touched it since pushing restart the one time.

At this point, it booted to the motherboard screen where I can enter the boot menu and such, but it remained here for much longer than normal, maybe 20-30 seconds. Then it continued to a black/blank screen, then white, and at this point I decided to turn it off completely with the power button.

I waited a bit, then turned it back on. It did all the same stuff as above and then went to a black/blank screen again. The monitor was still on, but it just showed nothing.

It remained like that until I turned it off again.

Any ideas on what's happening?

Thanks!
 

​

This definitely sounds like your PC is encountering a hardware-level issue or possibly a corrupted boot process after an abnormal crash. Let’s break it down based on your symptoms:

What Could Be Going Wrong?​

1. System Freeze Followed by Strange Reboot Behavior​

  • Chrome freezing and UI unresponsiveness could indicate:
    • GPU issues (especially if thumbnails weren’t rendering properly).
    • RAM problems.
    • Storage device (SSD/HDD) starting to fail (if parts of the OS or Chrome files couldn’t be read).
    • Overheating or power-related instability.

2. PC Turning Off Completely Instead of Restarting​

  • Pushing the restart button should perform a warm reboot — not power off.
  • If it powers off suddenly:
    • Power Supply Unit (PSU) may be failing or supplying unstable voltage.
    • Motherboard is detecting a fault and performing a power cycle.
    • Short circuit or hardware protection (like surge or temp protection) could be triggering.

3. Repeated Power Cycling​

  • Boot → off → boot → off cycle is often a POST (Power-On Self-Test) failure, meaning the system is trying to initialize hardware and failing.

4. Getting Stuck on Motherboard Splash Screen​

  • BIOS is trying to complete POST but is hitting an error.
  • The fact that you sometimes reach a blank or white screensuggests:
    • GPU failure or improper connection.
    • BIOS corruption.
    • RAM or CPU errors.
    • Storage device not detected or not bootable anymore.

️ What You Can Do (Step-by-Step Troubleshooting)​

✅ First: Basic Power Cycle​

  1. Power the system off completely.
  2. Unplug power cable from PSU.
  3. Hold down the power button for 10 seconds (discharge capacitors).
  4. Plug it back in and try powering on again.
If that doesn’t work, move on.

Step 1: Disconnect Peripherals​

  • Unplug all external devices: USB drives, printers, cameras, etc.
  • Leave only mouse, keyboard, monitor.

Step 2: Reset CMOS​

Sometimes a bad BIOS setting or a failed overclock can cause these symptoms.
  1. Power off and disconnect power.
  2. Remove the CMOS battery on the motherboard (the silver coin-cell).
  3. Wait 5–10 minutes.
  4. Reinsert the battery and power on.

Step 3: Check Hardware Components​

RAM​

  • Power off.
  • Remove and reseat RAM sticks.
  • If you have more than one, try booting with only one stick at a time in different slots.

GPU​

  • If you have a discrete graphics card:
    • Reseat the card.
    • Try connecting monitor to the motherboard (if integrated graphics are available).
    • If you suspect GPU failure, boot without the card.

Storage Drive​

  • Disconnect SSD/HDD and see if system still tries to POST.
  • A completely dead drive can hang the system.

⚙️ Step 4: Try Safe Boot or BIOS Entry​

  • If you can reach the motherboard splash screen, try entering BIOS (Del / F2 / Esc).
  • If BIOS is accessible:
    • Check if your SSD is detected.
    • Check CPU temps and voltages (look for anything abnormal).

If All Else Fails:​

  • Try booting from a Live USB (Linux or Windows install media).
  • This tests if your storage drive or OS install is the issue.

Possible Causes (Summarized)​

CauseLikelihoodNotes
PSU failing★★★★☆Random shutdowns, reboots
Motherboard issue★★★★☆POST failure, screen hangs
GPU failure★★★☆☆Especially if thumbnails weren’t playing
RAM issue★★★☆☆Easy to test
Dead/Corrupt SSD★★★☆☆Would explain hang after splash
BIOS corruption★★☆☆☆Possible, but less common
Windows corruption★★☆☆☆Less likely to cause total power loss

Final Tip​

If you're comfortable, disconnect all drives and see if the PC boots to BIOS and stays there. That helps isolate it to storage vs. other hardware.
 
I'm happy to say, after doing step 1 (unplugging and holding down Power), it booted up normally again! Thank you so much!

If it matters, I didn't think to mention that also yesterday evening, the power in the neighborhood was funky for a bit. The lights and appliances (some, but not all!) would flash and turn off and then turn back on. This happened for a few seconds, a couple of different times.

I wasn't near my PC at the time, so I'm not sure what effect it had on it, or if it turned off and on at all from that.
 
Oh no, it's doing it again! This time I'm just in Gmail. It's been working fine for the past couple of hours, but now clicking anywhere does nothing, Ctrl+alt+del does nothing, and I'm too scared to push reset again!

Somehow I can still move the mouse cursor around, but nothing responds to anything.

I don't know what to do right now, but I guess I need to restart or turn off the power eventually. :(
 
Last edited:
Alright, this time I turned off my PC by holding down the Power button for 10 seconds. It turned off after about 3-4 seconds, but I kept it held down for 10.

This worked again, but now I worry that it will probably keep happening.

Another thing I just noticed is that when my PC boots up properly, the boot screen is just a simple black screen that says "Gigabyte" (my motherboard) with a few options on the bottom.

Yesterday, when it was booting up weirdly and pausing on the boot screen for 20-30 seconds, it wasn't this screen. It was a white screen that still said Gigabyte, but it had more graphics on it and looked very different than this usual screen I see when it boots.
 
JohnJSal said:
I'm happy to say, after doing step 1 (unplugging and holding down Power), it booted up normally again! Thank you so much!

If it matters, I didn't think to mention that also yesterday evening, the power in the neighborhood was funky for a bit. The lights and appliances (some, but not all!) would flash and turn off and then turn back on. This happened for a few seconds, a couple of different times.

I wasn't near my PC at the time, so I'm not sure what effect it had on it, or if it turned off and on at all from that.
Click to expand...
JohnJSal said:
I'm happy to say, after doing step 1 (unplugging and holding down Power), it booted up normally again! Thank you so much!

If it matters, I didn't think to mention that also yesterday evening, the power in the neighborhood was funky for a bit. The lights and appliances (some, but not all!) would flash and turn off and then turn back on. This happened for a few seconds, a couple of different times.

I wasn't near my PC at the time, so I'm not sure what effect it had on it, or if it turned off and on at all from that.
Click to expand...


Good old Chat GPT :)
 
You have failing hardware somewhere. I would do a diagnostic on the hard drive first especially if you have had power disruptions lately. Those are never good for a pc.
 
johnb35 said:
You have failing hardware somewhere. I would do a diagnostic on the hard drive first especially if you have had power disruptions lately. Those are never good for a pc.
Click to expand...

Ok, hopefully I can do that before it happens yet again! I put it to sleep last night and haven't turned it back on yet today.

Is there a diagnostic tool I can use directly within Windows?
 
johnb35 said:
You have failing hardware somewhere. I would do a diagnostic on the hard drive first especially if you have had power disruptions lately. Those are never good for a pc.
Click to expand...

Well, I did a disk check and it found some kind of error, so I chose the restart/repair option. It finished that, and now I will desperately hope that that fixed the issue!
 
What brand of hard drives do you have installed? That will determine what utility to run. Is it the EVO 870 and how old is it?
 
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